Rights of a Pregnant Woman and Her Baby

One of the more infuriating aspects of Woman as Patient are the events that tend to unfold during and immediately following the birth. Just as during labor, the power dynamic is established early on, so too, is the establishment of “possession” of and entitlement to the newborn immediately following the birth.

I’ve explored in some detail in a prior post the power struggle that takes place during the birth. Here, I’ll focus on the events immediately following the birth, and how they serve to maintain woman as patient, thereby diminishing her confidence in her own intuition as a mother.